UCI program fights cancer with cancer

Dr. Daniela Bota is conducting human trials of possible brain-cancer vaccines, an example of a trend known as personalized medicine. She is pictured with images of brain tumors. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Patients older than 18 with a cancer type called glioblastoma multiforme who wish to enroll in one of Dr. Daniela Bota’s three clinical trials can call a toll-free number at UC Irvine, 877-827-8839, or send an email to ucstudy@uci.edu.

She is awaiting approval for a fourth trial, involving a vaccine called ERC1671, but it is now available in Europe for patients who wish to travel. The company that makes the vaccine is called Epitopoietic Research Corp.

Military metaphors are hard to avoid when describing the work in Daniela Bota's lab.

Petri dishes become training camps, where cells taken from patients "learn" to attack a patient's brain tumor.

Then, they are re-injected into the patient to seek out and destroy the enemy.

Bota, a UC Irvine neuro-oncologist, is conducting three separate human trials of brain tumor vaccines, with a fourth on the horizon.

And all four are potentially significant advances in the rapidly expanding realm of "personalized medicine" – drafting a patient's own cells in the fight against disease.

"It's the wave of the future," Bota told a recent visitor to her lab, where the brains of laboratory mice bred to grow human tumors are revealing the tumors' secrets – and their vulnerabilities.

The clinical trial of the training-camp treatment, known as DCVax, is aimed at patients whose brain tumors have been surgically removed.

Parts of the patient's tumor cells mingle in the petri dish with immune cells, known as dendritic cells, strained from the patient's blood.

"We teach the dendritic cells to fight the tumor," Bota said. "They go and interact with the other immune cells. Everybody gets the message."

While follow-up radiation and chemotherapy can extend patients' lives, it typically fails to remove all cancer cells. Beefing up the patient's immune cells just might.

Two other trials target proteins found on the surface of cancer cells. Like a rallying flag, they summon souped-up immune cells to tear the tumor apart.

"Chemotherapy attacks normal cells," Bota said, leading to unwanted side effects, such as memory loss.

Her approach takes sharper aim at tumor cells.

"A majority of patients have almost no side effects," she said. "There's a much better tolerance than (with) traditional therapies."

A fourth trial awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration would deploy an even broader arsenal against tumors.

Related Links

Dr. Daniela Bota is conducting human trials of possible brain-cancer vaccines, an example of a trend known as personalized medicine. She is pictured with images of brain tumors. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A microscopic image shows cancer cells. It is studied in the lab of Dr. Daniela Bota, the medical director of the brain tumor program at UC Irvine. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Mouse brains with tumors are studied in the UC Irvine lab of Dr. Daniela Bota, medical director of the brain tumor program. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
A projection image of a culture of a cancer stem cell. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Research associate Dr. Kaijun Di works in the UC Irvine research lab of Dr. Daniela Bota, where they study brain tumors. MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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